Chp. 1 Who's the Boss Here?
My city wasn’t exactly the best place to grow up in. It was a big place. I was 13, four years ago now, and there was crime nonstop. Some would even say it was the city of the theives. Now my mom and dad, they were some serious drug users. Which was pretty common here. It seemed like their only purpose in life was to neglect their only son and to work for drug money. But hey, to me that was life. Not everyone had perfect parents. My friend Sam, now there was a kid lucky enough to have good parents. They were decent enough to care but not too much so we could still do whatever the hell we wanted. We took advantage of that. In our position who wouldn’t? To us crazy 13 year olds, all that really mattered was candy, money, and for all of the other kids to know who the bosses were. Who were the bosses? Funny you should ask.
Days at school for us 6th graders would start out slow. The mornings were groggy with sleepy kids slouching around the lunch tables, eating their gross soggy school breakfast. Me, Sam, and very few others would walk around commanding money or at least whatever they had. Didn’t have anything? Expect to have your face pushed into a plate full of buttery burnt toast with overcooked scrambled eggs. We always got a laugh out of that one. I for one never did the pushing. That was usually Sam’s job. I was in charge of taking their shit. Lunch was usually the same. Every once in a while there’d be your brave hero who’d stand up to us and woohoo that’s where the fun part began. Again, I was never the puncher. I mean I’m sure I could have been since I was pretty tall but I never wanted to get my hands dirty. Whenever we’d beat the kid who oh so graciously stood up to us, we’d wait until they were alone. Whether it was in the bathrooms, after school, or between classes.
This carried on for 3 years until finally I quit school. Sam too although his parents weren’t fond of the idea. But in all truth we never really asked for their input in the first place. They probably weren’t going to be fond of what we were doing right now either. Breaking into houses, stealing people’s savings, jewelry, electronics. These boys had to make a living and this was the easiest and most enjoyable way to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t enjoy hurting people. It was the greed. I learned to block out my inner thoughts. Anything that didn’t have to do with me was blocked and that’s just how I was. Possibly I could’ve grown up differently but a lot of people would consider me lucky. I never got bullied, I didn’t have any extra issues, I got quick cash and I had a friend that cared about me. I was living the dream as a criminal.
